These Tablets could take years to work, warns Acer

Cheaper hardware needed

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One of Microsoft's leading OEMs for the Tablet PCs has reaffirmed its faith in the concept, but warned that it may take "years" for it to catch on. Although Tablet OEMs have picked up some wins in education and vertical niches, it's failed to dent the notebook market. Acer says that it had hoped Tablets would make up 20 per cent of its notebooks sales, but they account for less than ten per cent to date.

Campbell Kan, head of Acer's notebook division, made the comments at Computex in Taiwan this week, EE Timesreports. Kan seems to have the right idea: Acer is investigating ways of reducing the cost of the designs.

Sony this week showed a pen based "slate" PC that shuns the Tablet PC edition of Windows, and instead uses a modified version of regular Windows XP Home Edition.

Microsoft angered its partners by allowing Windows XP SP2 to slip. It had earlier announced that it had consolidated Tablet and Media Center releases onto the main XP schedule. But the slippage means that vendors have missed the key early summer buying season for the verticals they were hoping to target. ®